GM faces ban on selling driver data that can be used to raise insurance rates

GM sold geolocation and other driving data without adequate consent, FTC says.

See full article...

 

[Ravant]

With 40,000 auto deaths a year in the USA alone, all cars should be geolocated like this and GPS speed limited.

Problem with this "solution" is a data integrity issue. My 2021 Mazda CX-30 thinks a stretch of a major toll highway whose speed limit is set to 70MPH is actually a 25MPH zone due to a parallel road. As such, when it correlates its speed sign data with GPS data, it displays 25MPH as the speed limit in my heads-up display, on my dash, and when calculating the speed limit warning system to start bonging at me. I'm the kind of person who sets my cruise control to the speed limit and stay as right-ward as possible.

However, if there were to be a GPS speed limit per your suggestion, the car would force me down to 25MPH in a 70MPH zone, which... that speed differential with the rest of traffic is far more dangerous than anything else on the road.

When we can actually guarantee data integrity, then we can allow those kinds of speed limiters, but until such time, it is much safer to turn to annoying bonging instead of hard-limits.

Edit to add:
Get. A. Dash. Cam. Seriously, they will help you in so many situations.

Sometimes it is necessary to engage in what these data collection systems view as "unsafe" to avoid an actual unsafe motorist. You sometimes need to accelerate instead of brake to avoid someone coming into your lane while on their phone paying no attention, which requires a temporary exceeding of a speed limit. Sometimes you need to swerve because someone engages in an unsafe maneuver and you have to avoid them. Sometimes you need to brake hard because the person in front of you is attempting to engage in an insurance scam and trying to get you to rear-end them.

My dash cam footage has gotten me out of an "Unsafe Lane Change/Aggressive Driving" ticket because my "unsafe" lane change was avoiding a phone addict texting and driving. My dash cam footage was once used in an accident investigation. I wasn't directly involved, I avoided the wreck by ending up in the grass, but three other vehicles did end up in that collision because someone suddenly tried to dive from the left lane across three lanes of traffic to avoid missing their exit.

Each of these situations lacks context when OBD/Sensor data is used to extrapolate a driver's abilities.

 

[pacify]

the press release doesn't state how GM intends to collect affirmative consent
OTA update to the infotainment? collect signatures from customers at the next service appointment? text back YES?

the press release carefully, very carefully states, that for the next five years GM can't disclose - not collect but disclose data

the press release doesn't state how any of the parties involved intend to ensure GM has actually deleted the hoard of data they have and laughably how exactly the entities GM has sold - sorry shared - this data with will or have deleted this information
are we supposed to take everyone's word?

the press release doesn't explain why this agreement is only for the next 2 decades and more importantly, what happens after that
is it cool to sell the data in 2045 even though GM doesn't have affirmative consent?

don't get me wrong, maybe there is more press releases to come
I didn't expect the pres release to answer all my questions
I also wasn't expecting to leave with more concerns though

anyway for those of you looking
https://www.gm.com/consumer-privacy
to request to access or modify or delete personal information
you can also opt-out of profiling or targeted adverting or sale of personal information
you can even see what kind of brokers GM has sold your personal information to
for some reason, the options above vary by state, like in Kentucky you can only access or modify or delete personal information

https://www.gmcontactpreferences.com/
to modify or opt-out of all phone, mail, and email marketing communications contact preferences

https://www.gm.com/privacy-statement
that's GM's new consolidated privacy statement

hope this helps!!

 

[countbalo]

While I’ve heard of companies that do this tracking advertising lower rates to get people to switch to one of these plans, it seems like it usually results in a rate increase in the long run unless the driver uses their car very little (100 miles per week or less).

In our case, our insurance company offered to "install" a black box to lower the rate, we told them to fuck off because we haven't had an accident in over 20 years. If that doesn't tell them what they need to know then they are bad at their job.

 

[mmiller7]

Near where I live, we have a real problem with people merging too slowly. There are short on-ramps into 110 km/h traffic. You floor it, match speed and merge. Easy. But then you get people trying to merge at 80 km/h and others have to brake hard or swerve around them.

The widespread belief is that it's because of trackers that threaten to penalize you for exceeding 2500 rpm or whatever.

The technology needed to assess a driver's skill this way does not exist. It probably can't exist; it's fundamentally impossible to assess driving skill without visual context.

The insurers who say otherwise are full of BS. "This thing lets us refine your rates in 5% increments" meanwhile five different underwriters reviewing identical policies for the same car and driver can't agree on the premium to within a 300% spread. They aren't nearly as good with data as they claim to be; they just have to be good enough to not slip into the red on the quarterly reports.

110km/h is about 68mph...that's not particularly fast (at least for USA speeds) where any interstate where there's a ramp is going to be 65-70 with traffic doing 75-85mph in the slow lane and a left hand ramp probably much faster.

The rural area I live most state highways (which have NO ramps, you may be pulling out onto from a shopping center or dirt/gravel road) are often 55-60mph and traffic flow around 70mph.

I'm curious what the cruising and redline is on cars there if people claim >2500RPM is a potential magic number? So many of these new cars I have been in need to run around 2500RPM in 6th gear to hold 65mph on flat ground and need to get up around 3000RPM in 5th just to maintain highway speed up the smallest of hills and push 5000RPM any time you need to accelerate because they put such a tiny little engine in that it needs major reduction in gearing to have the oomph to push the car. My newest car (2020) the tach has the redline mark around 6600-6700RPM. The common rental-car I get at work is a little Toyota sedan with a 1.8L non-turbo engine that really has to rev like mad to make the car do anything...and one time I brought my OBD scanner and set it to measure acceleration, foot-to-the-floor it did a 7 second 0-30 (not a typo, to THIRTY! Even my big crossover does 0-60 in just over 8) and around 12-13 seconds to hit 60.

But yeah all this boils down to...their "monitoring" can't account for framing the actions in the situation they were performed. Flooring it in a residential area and flooring it pulling onto the main highway 1 street over are to extremely different actions, one is reasonable the other is not.

 

[M E]

We should have laws that protect against these privacy invasions. At the very least, companies should be required by law to make it obvious what data the companies are collecting, and by obvious I mean not buried in the fine print.

It's getting harder and harder to find companies that will do the right thing by their customers without the government forcing them to do so.

 

[rochefort]

It's not just GM. All vehicle manufacturers are quaking that the switch to BEVs will seriously lower their profits (the drivetrain needs a lot less maintenance; <snip>
All of them are on record as trying to make up for this by collecting driver data and selling it (at the very least, for advertising purposes).

That's a pretty strong statement. Where have they said this?

 

[Earthmapper]

This is why my newest car is nearly 10 years old - even then, I wondered what information the infotainment devices were gathering. I'm also curious about the scope of collection - for example, when you let OnStar subscription expire, are they still gathering and transmitting information to GM? The whole thing makes me sick.

 

[jdale]

This is why my newest car is nearly 10 years old - even then, I wondered what information the infotainment devices were gathering. I'm also curious about the scope of collection - for example, when you let OnStar subscription expire, are they still gathering and transmitting information to GM? The whole thing makes me sick.

Why would they stop? Just because you aren't paying them? How is that even relevant?

https://www.gm.com/privacy-statement?evar25=onstar_legal_privacy
When location services are enabled in your vehicle, we collect Geolocation Information while the vehicle is used and upon the occurrence of certain events. Some model year 2019 and later vehicles may have an option to disable location services. If you disable location services, we collect Geolocation Information only in the event of an emergency (such as in the event of a crash or when the emergency call button is pressed). Consult your vehicle Owner’s Manual for more information. In addition, when you use Vehicle Mobile Apps, we may collect mobile device Geolocation Information, such as location and speed based on your device’s GPS sensors.

and

We may disclose Personal Information within GM, including to GM affiliates. We also may disclose Personal Information to the following categories of third parties:
.....
As permitted by law

I mean, there are a lot of specific examples, but "as permitted by law" means no restrictions whatsoever. And that's the bottom line, isn't it?

That said, it was this one that has been abused the most egregiously in the past:

To emergency service providers and roadside assistance providers to deliver related services and to protect your safety or the safety of others (for example, to help you in an emergency).

It doesn't sound bad, but those guys re-sold the information because they weren't bound in any way by GM's privacy policy.

 

[bayouborne]

"The proposed settlement was approved in a closed meeting by the FTC's three Democrats, with the two Republicans recorded as absent. The pending agreement will be subject to public comment for 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, and a final FTC decision will be made under the Trump administration."

Why were the two Republicans Melissa Holyoak and Andrew Ferguson absent? Do they not want to be openly seen to be voting against this? Is there other background on this?

 

[RZetopan]

If I have to brake hard, that's AVOIDING an accident. If I swerve, that's AVOIDING an accident. How and why would that data impact me negatively?

Sleazy company CEO's will use any excuse to increase their pay.

 

[truth serum]

Why only five years? Why not forever, and apply that to all other companies as well?

Because they actually want the data and think it more strategically prudent to ease people into it instead of jumping into it all at once.

 

[wavelet]

That's a pretty strong statement. Where have they said this?

I've seen it in numerous carmaker and analysts presentations over the past several years. My country has >100 startups whose entire business model is to provide Big Dara SW for carmakers to collect and analyze this data for connected cars, in order to sell them. By not providing actual addresses/PII, this can to some extent even make an end run around thr GDPR.
I'll try to hunt up some of those presentations.

To emphasize, this is unrelated to any use of connected-car data for autonomous vehicles or ADAS: Just provide realtime location type/length of stay/number of passengers/etc. That, combined with the specific car model is high-value info for advertisers (e.g., an expensive 2-seater car means the owner is probably a potential customer for other expensive gizmos)
Since it's going to be difficult-to-impossible to disable connected-car functionality in upcoming car models, this will help entities like Google even if people disable their phone GPS while driving.